Roller skates are well known. They have been available for many decades. In the older type of skate, four wheels are mounted two each on two axles, one in front of the other. In the newer type of skate, each of the wheels is mounted on its own axle, and all of the wheels are mounted in tandem. This newer roller skate is also referred to as a roller blade.
Roller skates are suitably directly coupled to a shoe as a single integral unit, or they may be made so as to be attachable to a shoe. These configurations are equally adapted to implementation with either the two axle, two wheel per axle, or the roller blade type of arrangement.
It has always been the desire of skaters to go faster. Toward this end, skates have become lighter and their construction has been modified so as to minimize friction. Also, in the past, many attempts have been made to provide auxiliary propelling means for skates. However, none of these has as yet seen any substantial commercial success.
Many of these auxiliary propelling means for roller skate have been disclosed to be carried on the person of the skater, that is on a belt or on the back of the skater in the form of an electric motor or an internal combustion engine. Power transmission between the motor/engine and the skate has often been provided by means of a rigid or a flexible power transmission means such as a shaft or a cable.
It is clearly undesirable for such a motor/engine to be carried on the back or the belt of the skater. The power transmission is too long and therefor too much power is lost in the transmission. Further, and perhaps more importantly, the attitude of the skater does not always coincide with the attitude of the roller skates, which may make for either a very complicated power transmission system, or one which may be subject to interruption when the motor/engine being carried by the skater and the roller skates get too far out of functional alignment.
It is therefore believed that it is more appropriate and efficient to provide a means for driving (powering) roller skates which is more proximate to the skate itself. This would be less subject to power transmission failure or interruptions because of these attitudinal differences between the skates and the skater. In this regard, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,032 in which there appears to be described roller skates which are driven by an electric motor which is mounted directly to the skate frame.
In this reference, the electric motor is mounted on the skate frame, suitably to the rear of the rear, or driven, wheels. The motor is directly coupled to the driven wheels, and is powered by a battery power pack which is carried on the back of the skater. Controls for the motor are worn on the skater's belt.
While electric motors have been considered to be suitable for this use, it is well known that electric motors do not put out a large amount of power, and do not run for long on battery power. Further, they are not very effective under high load conditions, such as climbing a hill. Electric motors are advantageous, however, in that they start instantaneously, without cranking, and they do not require the skater to carry a flammable, often dangerous, fuel around to feed the motor.
Given these advantages and disadvantages of the use of personal electric motors to power roller skates, it would still be better to be able to use an internal combustion engine to power roller skates, if the disadvantages thereof, principally the difficulty of startup, could be overcome.
Another problem which has faced skaters is the fact that there has never been an adequate braking system developed for roller skates. Conventionally, a rubbing member is attached to the front (toe portion) of the skates, and when the skater wishes to stop, slow down, or sharply turn about one of the skates as an axis point, the skater tips his foot forward so that the rubbing member touches the ground (floor) with more or less pressure whereby retarding the rolling action of the skate, and causing the skate to slow or stop.
This system has been in use for many years, and has performed quite adequately where the power applied to the skate is limited to the power of the skater. Since the power of the skater drives the skate, the power of the skater can stop the skate. However, where auxiliary driving power, by means of a motor or engine, is added to the skate, the power of the skater to apply this simple means of mechanically pressing a rubbing member against the floor will not be sufficient. The addition of auxiliary power to the skate requires a more powerful and better braking operation.
There has been an increasing interest in recent years in providing alternate means of transportation of people. This is of particular concern in urban areas where the streets have become increasingly crowded with automobiles. The automobile population increase has caused congestion and substantial increases in air and noise pollution.
One of the major problem with the use of automobiles is that the amount of fuel consumed in their operation is proportion to their entire weight, that is the weight of the people and goods being transported as well as the weight of the automobile itself. Where many people, and/or much goods, are being transported, there is a reasonable relationship between the amount of fuel being consumed, the amount of pollution being created, and the total weight of the material/people being transported. Where a large and heavy car is used to transport a single person, a disproportionate amount of fuel is needed to move the weight of the car as compared to the amount which actually is needed to move the weight of the person and goods in the car.
In recent years there has been an effort to reduce the weight and size of cars and thereby increase their fuel efficiency. There have also been efforts to encourage the use of multiple occupancy vehicles in order to increase the proportion of the weight of passengers and freight to the weight of the vehicle itself.
Public transportation is, of course, one solution to this problem. However, many people do not like to use public transportation, and will not if they can use their cars. Further, even where public transportation is used, there is often some distance between the public transportation stop and the ultimate destination of the rider. These deficiencies raise a need for alternative transportation means.
In other countries, and to a lesser extent here in the United States, bicycles, even motored bicycles (mopeds), have been used to transport people. This is much more efficient from a fuel conservation perspective, but bicycles still take up a fair amount of room on the streets, several times as much room as the person riding the bicycle would take up if that person was walking.
While all of these efforts are admirable, there is still need to provide more efficient transportation which will reduce the amount of fuel needed per weight of people and goods being transported.